Civic Impact

Bicycle built for 200,000? You bet, if bike sharing comes to the Burgh

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Spokes are spinning, but rubber has yet to meet the road – that's the message of Bike Pittsburgh head Scott Bricker, who is in the early stages of trying to bring bike sharing to Pittsburgh.

"We're just learning about it," Bricker says. "We like what we see in other cities around the world. We're just trying to build excitement here."

The European model, in which bikes are rented at a fee that increases every half hour, then are dropped back off at scattered stations, is usually run by an advertising company, with commercial messages covering the bikes' larger-than-normal back fender.

Bricker's cycling promotion group is set to bring in one bike sharing company, B-Cycle, in April for initial discussions about running the concept here. In addition to the ad revenue, it may also be a subscription service.

However it is run, he hopes it attracts wide support here. People uninterested in other public transportation may nonetheless take advantage of bicycles to complete their trips to work from a parking spot closer to their homes. Or they may use two wheels to make a lunch date, or a mid-day meeting, all around Downtown and to the North or South Side.

"This is something our elected officials and funders and corporations should be looking into," Bricker says, "because it will improve the quality of life here."

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